Oscar Robertson and his odd numbers

[C-izMe]

So I was looking at Oscar's numbers and I was going to equalize them and put him on the suns in Steve Nash's place. Then I remembered something large. They didn't record assist the right way. Back then if someone took a dribble it didn't count as an assist. My question is do you believe that Oscar's assist will go up in the modern time.

[SideshowBob]

Well, I suppose the obvious decline in pace would make up for the boost he'd get due to assists being counted differently today.

It wouldn't affect his impact on the offense however, though other factors would.

[Doctor MJ]

So I was looking at Oscar's numbers and I was going to equalize them and put him on the suns in Steve Nash's place. Then I remembered something large. They didn't record assist the right way. Back then if someone took a dribble it didn't count as an assist. My question is do you believe that Oscar's assist will go up in the modern time.

They might. It's really hard to say. Key thing: It's not that only contemporary people saw the benefit in fudging thing. Hell, the Harlem Globetrotters weren't even from the state of New York. There's no doubt that in general, scorekeepers back then saw less benefit to inflating assist totals, but when it comes to the outliers, I think it's only reasonable to expect that there might have been a push to make sure a glamour performer like this got every vaguely assist-like thing credited to him.

We had a thread a while back where someone actually tracked Walt Frazier's assists in the Game 7 of the '70 Playoffs when he had almost 20 recorded assists, and they said Frazier didn't even seem to have 10. I never got around to verify his findings so I'm not going to say that it's necessarily true, but there is good reason to be cautious about considering Oscar's showcased numbers to be somehow undercounted.

btw, none of this is anything that makes me say "Oscar wasn't really that great". Dude was quite great indeed.

[C-izMe]

I personally believe he would be better if playing now. He had a very modern game and I was trying to watch one of his games to count them but I haven't got around to it.

[Chicago76]

You can attempt to neutralize this through ast/fgm lg adjustments.

In 1960-61, there were .533 assists for every made field goal. In 1978-79 (last year before the 3), that number was up to .578. In 1986-87 (3 still not widely used), that number was at .609. Today, that number has dropped to .577.

The mid 80s were considered the high water mark for assists for a couple reasons. They were handed out more liberally then, but the frequency with which teams scored in transition was also a big reason. The only other major factor is the three point shot, which are generally assisted at higher rates.

The other thing to consider would be pace adjustments. You need to be careful how you do these. Pace isn't particularly important. Team FGM today vs. then is more important.

If you dropped Robertson onto the Suns, he'd take a 15% hit on FGM, but he'd get 8% back on the ast definition for an avg NBA team today. On a team like the Suns who historically have relied upon a combination of uptempo transition + halfcourt three point shooting, he'd get back more than 8%. It's actually probably pretty close to the ast numbers Robertson actually put up, give or take maybe half a dime a game.

[C-izMe]

I did his triple double year (putting him on the Suns) and ended up with 24/6/12. I'm not done with it yet because I've been busy, but I will post his career (adjusting every season to the 2005-10 Suns averages). I picked them because they were the best offense.